


Crashed Into a Lake

by kathrynmc



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Cliffhangers, Concussions, F/M, Gen, Head Injury, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Major Character Injury, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25981354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathrynmc/pseuds/kathrynmc
Summary: Paris and Janeway crash and the shuttle sinks into a lake. Paris is well enough to go swimming for the medkit.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway & Tom Paris, Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Crashed Into a Lake

"We're going down!" Tom shouted over the sound of the coolant spray and a terrible ripping somewhere in the aft hull.

"Rerouting emergency power to the transporters!" She was elbows-deep into the manual power relay.

He could see on his readout that it wasn't looking good. The main emergency power conduit was fried, and there was some problem with the backup circuit, almost as if... "Captain!" The explosion was big enough to rock the whole shuttle to its side. But she was there, knocked against the back of his chair, her firm hands finding his shoulders with a reassuring squeeze. She'd seen the buildup and backed away. "No transporters for us. Strap in."

"I've aimed us at a shallow lake. That's our best chance." His console sputtered and died. It was very hot in here.

She strapped herself in next to him. Gave him a fey sort of look. Reached her hand out. He took it, squeezed, and then --

Impact. His body thrown against the restraints. Her hand was no longer in his. Darkness as the windows were swallowed by water. One hand worked to unbuckle himself. The other reached out to feel for her. "Captain?" She was crumpled in her seat. It was too dark to see, but he felt her, unmoving. Found the pulse in her neck. Unbuckled her at the hip and across her chest. "Captain, wake up!" He was rewarded with a soft groan.

"Ok, up we go." He hoisted her out of the chair, held her by the armpits and dragged her to the back. Set her down gently as he fumbled for the magnetic clamp. He had to work fast, very fast, as the shuttle was sinking deeper into the lake. Still, he braced himself, took a deep breath, and got ready to hold her tight when the water started pouring in.

The doors opened. The firehose deluge slammed into him. He stumbled, on her body, dropped, held on, surrounded by cool swirling water and when the pressure eased he knew the shuttle had filled. He kicked them clear of the sinking hull and swam for the surface.

Tom broke through to overcast daylight. He awkwardly cradled the captain's head above water, her hair plastered down. Her mouth was open but he wasn't sure she was breathing. One-armed, he swam them towards shore. It was hard keeping her head high enough that water didn't slosh into her mouth.

His feet touched bottom and he hoisted her up and sloshed through to the sandy forest lakeside. Laying her down on her back, her head lolled and he saw sand sticking to a wide vertical gash. The water had washed the blood from her face and hair, but now the wound was bleeding again. She looked pale and wet and small. He took a deep breath. Felt her pulse. Good. No compressions. He turned her onto her side, made sure her mouth was open, and pounded on her back. Too gentle. Dammit. He pounded her like he would have pounded one of the guys.

She spewed, gasped. Thank goodness. He kept one hand on her back, the other on her arm. Preemptively holding her down, he realized, expecting she would do something stupid like try to get up.

"I'm alright," she gasped between coughs. He held her and let her ride it out until her breath evened. Eased her onto her back. Her eyes were closed, but he could tell she was awake. Her breath came deep and ragged. There was a little more color in her cheeks.

"You have a nasty gash on the head. What else hurts?' He started probing her limbs, her ribs, her abdomen. No rips in her uniform. Bruised, judging by how his own body felt.

"I'm fine," she said, without opening her eyes. "Just the headache." She was slurring, just a little.

He took a quick mental inventory. He himself was bruised up, but fine. The shuttle was sunk in the lake, with the back hatch open. He could go for a swim and recover the medkit. Judging by the circumference, the lake couldn't be too deep.

He didn't like the look of her. The concussion, the blood loss, the way she was making no move to get up. Yeah, he was going for the medkit. First things first. He took off his wet jacket. The shirt would make a better dressing, and anyway he had a tank on under it too. He always wore all three layers on away missions. Spreading the jacket on the sand to dry, he tore up the wet shirt and used it to gently wipe the sand from the gash. "I'm gonna lift your head a little, tie this on for now to stop the bleeding." She made a sound to show she'd heard and understood.

He tied down the bandage as best he could, then leaned over to shade her face. "Captain, I'm gonna ask you to open your eyes."

She did, immediately. Her eyes were clear, but on the left side her pupil was blown wide. It was a disconcerting look. "I'm going to go get the medkit. Are you going to be ok here for a bit?" He didn't like leaving her, not at all. At least she was having no trouble breathing. She might lose consciousness. But the medkit was going to be far more help to her than keeping her conscious. "Try to stay awake, ok?"

"I'm alright, Tom," she said weakly. "I'm awake. You go get the medkit."

Somehow he was less reassured than if she'd admitted that she wasn't feeling great. Somehow, this made it seem like it was so bad that she was putting on a brave face for him. Or else maybe she really was ok. But then why was she lying there so still? No, he could tell that she knew it was bad enough that she was not moving. Dammit. "Ok. It might take me a little while to come back, ok? Don't worry about me if I take an hour or so." It might take him several dives, if there was any obstruction. Plus the time to swim out and back. He glanced up at the smear of sun high in the clouds. "You can worry if it gets dark." He realized she should be in the shade. Apart from sunburn, it would help her not dehydrate. They could probably drink the lake water, hell -- they already had -- but he'd feel better once he got a fire going. Ugh. He pushed aside memories of survival training with dad.

"But first," he said brightly, "We're going to move into the shade, about ten meters." A mixed temperate forest abutted the rock-strewn sand. He could lay her between those two trees right there. "Do you feel up for that?" Her eyes had drifted closed again, her brow lightly knitted with the pain of her headache.

He hoped she would give some indication of how she wanted to do this. Was he going to help her to her feet in some dignified way, or stagger over there with her in his arms? He couldn't support her head well that way. Well, it wasn't like she had a spinal injury.

"Alright," she said at last, took a deep breath, opened her eyes. Her right hand came up unsteadily to grasp his bare shoulder. He put a hand under her back and lifted her to sitting. He would have paused there, but she was pulling herself up so he steadied her with both hands and they stood together. She stood close, her head bent almost against his chest, both hands steadying herself against his chest. His thin tank provided not much fabric between her small firm hands and, well, those pecs he'd been working on. He reached up to gently hold her shoulders.

"You alright?" he asked. He should have had something better to say, but he wanted to hear from her.

"I'm... dizzy..." she managed, leaning in toward him. Fuck it. He went ahead and closed the last inch between them, wrapping his arms around her to hold her against his chest. The top of her head came about to his collarbones as she rested there. He could feel her breathing against his belly. He kept a bend in his knees and held her low in her back so that it would be easy to catch her weight if she fainted. She had lost a shitton of blood from that headwound. And they were supposed to be keeping her conscious. Dammit.

A minute passed. "I'm just, very dizzy, Tom," she murmured.

That was as close as she was going to get to admitting that if she took a step she would pass out. Her stubbornness was forcing him to make the awkward decisions.

"Ok. It's ok. Here's what we're going to do. You're going to get on my back. Easy enough." It was certainly the easiest way for him to carry her, and he could hold her legs and bend far enough over that she would be essentially lying on his back and would not fall off.

He maneuvered them so that his back was to her, leaning forward to take her weight as she wrapped her arms around his neck and lay herself over him. He shifted and hitched her up, catching her legs as they came around him. There. Piece of cake.

He walked easily to the tree line and stopped next to a tree so that she could steady herself as she came down. "Captain?" She wasn't deadweight on him, but she didn't respond. He slid her down and around to lower her to the pine-needle ground. She was breathing shallowly, eyes closed, face pale. Her skin was cool and slightly clammy. Shock. Dammit.

"Hey," he lightly tapped her cheek. Then, sharply, "Captain, wake up!" Her blue eyes shot open, the disturbing asymmetry in her pupils still proclaiming her concussion.

"Captain. You're in shock. I need to get the medkit. I need to know that you're going to be doing your best to stay conscious and breathing here. Tell me that you understand that."

Her eyes struggled to focus on him. She looked like she was trying to acknowledge, but all that came out were confused syllables, whispered as her eyes rolled back into her head and she started to shiver.

A deadly calm overtook him. He stood, turned, sprinted the beach and dove into the water. His body ached as he swam hard. As much as he tried, he couldn't keep up his initial pace. He goaded himself into a fresh burst of adrenaline by imagining coming back to find her gone, just because he'd been a minute too slow.

He'd never been good at opening his eyes underwater. Two thirds of the way to the center of the lake, about where he remembered surfacing, he took a big lungful of air, dove, and forced his eyes open in the murky lake water. He couldn't see much. Kicking hard to dive quickly, he spotted the hulk of the shuttle just as the air in his lungs was running out. He kicked back to the surface for air. Location, check. Next dive would be for orientation, identifying the hatch and any obstacles, and then the third dive would be the long one, straight through to the medkit. He took several deep breaths, and dove again.

The shuttle had gone down nose-first, which was probably a design feature. The back hatch was easily accessible from above, and was open from their escape. He came up for air.

He pulled in deep breaths, conscious of time ticking down. A cold leaden dread filled his stomach. She was dying, right now, while he treaded water. _Shut up,_ he thought to himself. He filled his belly with air and dove again, swimming through the hatch and into the shuttle.

"We're going down!" he shouted over the sound of the coolant leak and a terrible ripping somewhere in the hull.

"I'm trying to get emergency power to the transporters!" She was elbows-deep into the manual power relay.

He could see on his readout that it wasn't looking good. The emergency power conduit was fried, and there was some problem with the backup circuit, almost as if... "Captain!" The explosion was big enough to tip the whole shuttle to its side. But she was there, knocked against the back of his chair, her firm hands finding his shoulders with a reassuring squeeze. She'd seen the buildup and backed away. "No transporters."

"I've aimed us at a shallow lake. That's our best chance." His console sputtered and died. It was very hot in here. He pulled himself out of his seat. The shuttle was in a nosedive, and without inertial dampeners and artificial gravity, the deck was now at an unsteady incline. "We're going to manually open the hatch and jump out into the lake before impact." It was better than going down in the shuttle. It would be harder to escape the shuttle against the pressure of water pouring in. 

She stared at him for a moment. No doubt running some estimate of their best chances too. "Let's do it."

They held on to each other as they stumbled drunkenly up the deck of the shuttle that was literally shaking itself to pieces around them. Tom grabbed the manual release for the large back hatch. Janeway was pulling open the emergency locker. Grabbing the bug-out bag. Slinging the medkit over her shoulder.

"Help me with this," he said, and together they hauled the doors open. Her hair whipped free in the wind of their descent. God, they were going down fast. He poked his head out. Holy shit. "Out, now!" he yelled, and helped her to clamber up onto the hull. She crouched low to keep her balance. He crouched next to her. They both stared at the rapidly oncoming lake. They needed to jump early enough that they could swim away from the suction of the crash site, but late enough that the impact with the water wouldn't do irreparable damage. She was staring intently down, gauging distances and speeds, when a piece of the hull flew off, hit her in the head, and she crumpled soundlessly and fell back into the shuttle. Tom gave an involuntary cry and scrambled down after her. She'd lost the bag and medkit in the fall. Without thinking, he hoisted her onto his shoulder and started to climb back out. Was he really going to jump with her unconscious?

Too late. Impact jarred him, but was mostly absorbed at the front of the shuttle. Water poured in with such force that they were ripped apart. Tom forced his eyes open in the murky water, stinging. There -- the form of her limp body. He grabbed her and started kicking towards the light. Broke the surface with a gasp, held her head above the water. Her hair plastered down over her face. Her mouth was open, but he didn't think she was breathing.

It was dark in the underwater shuttle. Tom's hands scrabbled around, feeling for the medkit, making his way down to the cockpit where it had most likely fallen. Ahh -- there, that was the strap of the emergency bag. And there, against the conn, was the medkit. He hauled both with him up to the surface.

By the time he ran back to her side, Kathryn was trembling violently. He was unable to muster any more fear -- he could only feel relief that she was not still and cold. He ran the medical tricorder over her, confirming a concussion that the tricorder was labeling as "serious", along with "moderate" blood loss, shock, and no other major injuries. In quick succession he injected her with epinephrine, a broad spectrum anti-inflammatory, and then saline. Unwrapped the bloodied dressing, passed a sterilizer and dermal regenerator over her to stop the bleeding. The pack was waterlogged, but he pulled out the crinkly heat-reflective blanket and spread it over both of them as he spooned her close, wound-side facing up, and felt her violent shivering slow against him. His hand that had ended up spread on her belly felt the reassuring rhythm of her breath. The pack had an emergency beacon in it, he needed to be drying it off and setting it up, but his aching, exhausted body was already sinking into sleep.

He woke to her shifting around against him. Trying to get her neck into a more comfortable position on his arm. It was dark. And chilly. She looked up and caught him looking at her. He couldn't make out her face well in the darkness. "Hey," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," she croaked. Cleared her throat, and said clearly, "Better, thanks."

They were going to need water. He thought about getting up and setting up the beacon. There was a flashlight in the bag, but he didn't want to leave her in the cold. And besides, his body felt like one massive exhausted bruise and it was nice to just lie here with her warmth pressed up against his side. "Make yourself comfortable," he said. "Let's get some rest." She settled with her head pillowed on his bicep. She was now turned to face him, wound-side down, but he figured if it wasn't hurting her and the bleeding had stopped, it didn't matter. Before he completely drifted off to sleep he felt her snuggle closer into the crook of his body.

Morning light woke him. She was breathing deeply and evenly and he was loathe to disturb her, but he really needed to pee. Gently as he could he extracted his arm and settled her on her back. He was less than relieved that she didn't stir.

He did his business behind a tree and came back to do inventory of the bag and set up the distress beacon. He made a fire pit and boiled water in the telescoping cookware. The emergency bag made everything much easier. In his father's class, they had trained without it.

It was mid-morning and he'd been keeping an eye on her and she still hadn't made any moves towards waking. He liked that she was getting rest. He didn't like that she was unconscious. The tricorder was showing only "Concussion -- serious -- seek medical care" and "Blood loss -- moderate -- rest and saline fluids; medical care". Anyway, now that he had water it was a good time to wake her and get her to drink, eat a ration. He crumbled a bit of a ration bar into the hot cup of water and sat next to her.

"Captain," he said softly. "I've got some water here. Do you think you could wake up to drink it?" He put a hand on her arm. At least her uniform had dried from their body heat. He touched her face. Her skin felt cool, but it might just be that she was sleeping while he'd been moving around. The air was a very comfortable twenty-C. Her lips were pale and chapped, but maybe that too was that her lipstick had washed off. That was part of why she looked so pale -- he wasn't used to seeing her without makeup.

"Captain," he shook her gently, and her eyes moved under their colorless lids. Her breathing changed. "Sorry to wake you, captain, but I thought you might like some warm water to drink."

She blinked up at him, eyes searching, confused. For a brief moment of terror he thought that perhaps she didn't recognize him. Then, "Tom," she croaked. "What happened?"

He shouldn't be surprised that she had some memory loss. "Our shuttle crashed," he said. "You have a concussion. I'm fine," he added. "I've set up a beacon. I'm guessing Voyager will be here by tomorrow morning."

She frowned. "Crashed?"

"A plasma storm. On our way back from surveying the fifth planet. Do you remember the survey?" She had been very enthusiastic about some astrophysics-y thing to do with the gas giant's formation.

She hesitated. "I remember being in the shuttle..." She shook her head, and winced. "I'm not sure."

"It's alright. The Doctor will patch you right up. In the meanwhile, why don't you try to sit up and drink some water?"

"Oh, yes."

He helped her to sit up and lean against the tree. Noting how, like yesterday, she seemed to have little motor initiative. But she took the cup in both hands and drank the warm water without sloshing. That was a good sign. Then she ate a whole ration bar. Yes. Then she stubbornly insisted on standing up. Very good.

They didn't have much to do while they waited for pickup. They had rations for two weeks, so no need to conserve food. Tom put on more water to boil. They were sitting next to the fire when a humanoid stepped out of the forest, dressed plainly, and pointed an energy weapon at them.

Tom's hands leapt into the air. "Don't shoot!"

Janeway's hands rose too. "We mean you no harm," she said evenly.

The shot hit her squarely in the torso and her back hit the sand.

Tom had no time to react before the second shot found him.


End file.
